I collected coins avidly when I was ~10-13 and the hobby just re-ignited itself with me again, now 30 years later (I can't exactly explain how or why, but here we are).
I went to a coin show today on a whim and what I discovered was that there are ALL types of collectors, and everyone should really understand that:
* There's 10 year old me that was obsessed with finding the rare die varieties hidden in the $1 bins,
* There's 42 year old me that is now getting deep joy buying the rare gems (1790s silver dollars, $20 gold pieces, etc.) that were beyond out-of-reach of 10-year-old me
* There's folks who obsess over filling every date of a specific series
Etc. etc. etc.
Find your joy and run with it, and definitely don't try to tell someone that their joy is the wrong one.
Coins are a great hobby. Something at every price point, with art and history to appreciate.
My current “serious” collecting project is to assemble an AU quality US half dollar type set, but I also have a few themed collections (sailboats, trees) composed of mainly dollar bin world coins. Both ways of collecting give me a lot of joy.
Genuine question: could you (and other collectors) expand on the joy you experience with a 'collecting' hobby?
I'm curious about things like 'is it the part about knowing that you've got the things' and/or 'is it looking at the things' and/or 'remembering the effort needed to successfully get the things', etc?
I never quite 'got' why some people like collecting stuff and would love to hear more about what brings y'all joy :)
For coins specifically, I can tell you what I like about them.
I collect coins from all across time (literally back to the 7th century BC, when the first coins were minted), and all over the world. To me, they're tiny little objects of art, pieces of history, and artifacts worthy of study. Adding a new coin to my collection is a reminder that I'm its temporary caretaker. My collection, to me, is like a tiny museum of history, art, metallurgy and economics. Also, I think they're cool, and I like owning cool stuff.
I don't think that's exactly what you asked for, but, then, I don't think I actually can explain it in a way that will make a lot of sense to you. It's either you have the collecting impulse, or you don't, I've found.
Edit: duh, coins were invented in the 7th century BC, not the 5th century BC.
Different people have different motivations in collecting. Some people are really into the completionist aspect and really enjoy hunting very specific items on a checklist; this type of collector might set out to assemble a date set with one Lincoln penny from each year of issue. This is a totally valid approach, but it's not my style.
Personally, I'm most interested in it for the art so I gravitate toward type collecting, which is about getting one nice example of each design within some parameters that I choose (denomination, country, etc). Since I'm buying fewer coins I can afford to put more money into each one which lets me buy higher quality pieces. I also like larger coins because the art is easier to see. The size criterion is how I decided to start a half dollar type set vs some other denomination.
For my inexpensive themed sets (can be anything e.g. coins with flowers, coins with animals, olympics coins, etc), I really like seeing how different people / countries / eras have explored the same subject matter in numismatic art. Individually these coins aren't that special, but seeing them together with others in the same subject matter theme emphasizes the differences and similarities. The contrasts make them all more interesting.
TLDR: For me, it's an art collection that fits in a shoebox.
I agree with everything coins_r_fun wrote in the sister comment will add some of my perspective (your timing is great with this question, btw - I just started taking notes for an essay I'm going to write on this topic. Sorry for the still-raw ideas).
There's multiple layers to coins for me:
* Art & Science - If you'll allow me to borrow some programming terminology, both the Class and the Instance are fascinating and work on multiple dimensions. The Class in that each design for a given coin is an engraving done with, at a certain time, fine hand tools and represents a snapshot of the public aesthetic of the moment.
But each Instance of a coin is also an opportunity for deep variation and aesthetic pleasure. Depending on how and where it was stored, the chemical reactions also can create absolutely stunning (dis)coloration on the surfaces that make a given coin absolutely unique and very desirable. Take these two coins as an example - both the same Class, but two deeply different Instances:
* History & Archeology - For the same reason I find it wondrous to go through a museum of historical objects and imagine that this plate was used by that person in some ancient civilization to eat dinner, a very mundane thing that binds us across centuries, I find it equally wondrous to hold a coin from the late 1700s in my hand and imagine that this ACTUAL object could have been used by a soldier coming home from the Revolutionary War to buy a drink at a local tavern, etc., and that through the years it's made its way from person to person to person and eventually into my hands. That is objectively cool, IMHO.
* Asset - Unlike many "things" one can spend money on, coins are, if purchased properly, a true asset. You can experience all the joy of retail therapy and gluttonous consumption, if that's your thing, of buying a shiny new toy and it's probably not going to lose value as you enjoy it! So it's not so much "spending" money on coins, it's just moving money into another form. I went to a coin show yesterday and spent $3000 on a very small handful of coins. Trust me when I say I am NOT the kind of person who spends $3000 on things - that would be a stomach-churning experience in many cases. But there was zero guilt, zero stress, and pure fun in buying these coins, because I know that at any moment I will be able to convert them back to $3000 (or more!) cash if I want to.
* Transaction - The art of the chase is really kind of fun, too. It's fun to learn the pricing, go to auctions, compete with other people, and experience the thrill of winning a bid that could be hundreds or thousands of dollars below market price (or above if you're not careful!). I won a bid at $900 in an online auction last night for a coin that I'll be able to sell for close to $2000 (if I want to). Does that happen all the time? No of course not - it's a pretty efficient market. But there are moments of inefficiency and it's fun to find and capture them.
Also, the numismatic community is one of the least toxic communities I've ever encountered online. Sure, there are corners of it that aren't great, but, most places I've been are very welcoming and helpful. Nobody will laugh at your dollar bin sailboat coins, either.
Awesome - thanks! I’ll check out Cointalk (it comes up a lot in various searches, so I’d heard of it, but didn’t know whether that was an SEO thing or a real thing).
Can you elaborate on why to stay away from the PCGS and NGC forums?
Funny to see this - had a similar situation recently (sort of) with a train shop. I couldn’t care less about collecting trains - I bought a train a few years ago for xmas and my kids loved it so I bought a year round one as well. Lionel trains are not cheap and easy to repair. Both have already broke where a significant repair was needed.
I watched videos and tried to fix one that wouldn’t fire up at all. Took it to the shop and the proprieties seemed kind of annoying with me as I asked for their help to repair (of course intending to pay). They gave me a lecture about letting a four year old play with a train like this. Usually I’d lose my temper and start arguing but my son really missed the train.
They ended up replacing the engine board ($120 bucks) and took forever to get it back to me.
I get that people have sacrosanct hobbies like coding, sports, etc. They have to understand that dilettantes like me may want to dabble!
Also I am a self taught DBA and never ever use keys. I’ll take in any incoming fire as probably deserved :).
I was nodding along with you (though I'm not into trains anymore) until this:
> Also I am a self taught DBA and never ever use keys. I’ll take in any incoming fire as probably deserved :).
... that's like saying "I'm a self-taught programmer, but I never use functions."
I mean, yeah, you can still get some things done that way, but if you spent a little time learning what's possible, you might be a lot happier with the end product.
Here come the traumatic memories of doing If/Then/Goto on TI-Basic, not understanding the Else or End tokens at all. Turns out each If/Then opens a new stack frame, and because I was never closing them with the corresponding tokens, memory slowly filled while the program ran. You could therefore get a high score of exactly 203 on my PONG clone before it crashed.
Good times! But seriously, take a few minutes to learn your tools properly if you use them more than once, it'll make things so much easier. :)
Will always crash after a couple seconds. Used to show it to my friends sometimes as a gag but it sucked to have to work around it.
(TI-BASIC uses = for equality comparison (iirc this includes comparing strings(?)) and -> as a single arrow symbol (STO on the keypad) for variable assignment (5->A for example is the same as A = 5 in Python).)
It would still be an improvement over the older BASIC dialects, because with those it was common to have a limit to the number of variables due to names being one or two letters.
Yep. ZX81 BASIC had 26 string variables (A$ through Z$) and 26 floating point variables (A through Z). No integer variables per se, but you could POKE and PEEK to get at 8-bit values anywhere in memory - which typically maxed out at 16K.
This used to be very common with VBA, I would expect these days it's more of a Python thing.
Someone wants to do something, they find out that the thing they want to do is "programming", and they start writing a script that can do that thing. They add to it, it gets longer, it works.
They probably know functions exist but don't really get why they would use one. There's a decent chance they'll never get it, and that's fine.
I have roughly ten python scripts I use for this and that, and three of them don't have any functions. I wrote a similar no-function python script for a work thing a couple jobs back, and my CTO was kind of ticked off, said I should know better, and don't submit it for code review again without a main() function and some "proper separation of concerns".
Which, fine; it's his company, the rewrite is trivial, I probably cleaned some things up a bit. But the script was fine the way it was.
I went to a train store a few years back, and yes there was definitely a "trains are serious business" vibe about the place.
Maybe it's because most of the customers have white hair and extra money.
Thing is, it's hilarious how seriously trains are done!
You buy a DCC locomotive and it has lights that light up in the direction of travel. The engine spools up with a delay like a real locomotive with sound increasing, the air brakes releasing and only then does it move. And they have 20 horns to choose from - pick the right one for the regional line you're simulating. Sort of nuts.
I was talking to another customer though and he balanced it all out. He said he had too many trains. He told me it was really relaxing to go downstairs after dinner with a glass of wine and run his trains or work on his layout.
Growing up, I knew a guy, friend of my Dad's, who had an incredibly elaborate train set in his basement. It's clear he had thousands of hours invested in it. I never got in to trains, but I do have a hobby video game coding project, and I'm struck by how similar it is to a model train hobby:
* I work on it exclusively in the evenings after the kids are asleep
* It relaxes me and gives me something to daydream about during work meetings
* It'll never make me any money and it'll never be done
The funny thing about my Dad's friend was, he hated showing off his trains. Very few people knew it existed, and even fewer had seen it; he only let me see it once, and my dad was his best friend for 40+ years.
Back then I thought he was secretive, or afraid I'd break something. Now that I have my own pointless hobby, I think I understand him better. It's embarrassing to put so much time and thought into something and to have someone see it and say, "Neat! So, anyway..." I guess it's more valuable as a private solace than as a conversation piece.
I think it's nice, maybe even necessary, to have something that you enjoy, and maybe you're even good at, but you don't have to care about and doesn't have to become a responsibility.
I had little hobby projects, and people were like - you should make this into a product. And I had to fight this sort of "am I too lazy to do it? am I afraid?" but really, I just needed something that didn't have a point.
I also think there are a lot of things I didn't "get" as a kid. I remember trying golf as a kid, and I thought "this is so totally boring, why don't these guys ride bikes instead?" And it's only when you get (much) older do you realize people have so much responsibility that getting outside and walking around is a treasure. (of course it could be other things)
> people were like - you should make this into a product. And I had to fight this sort of "am I too lazy to do it? am I afraid?" but really, I just needed something that didn't have a point.
I like the freedom of not having a point. Some programmers are accused of trying out new ideas at work and messing up the product. It's nice to try new ideas at home on throw-away projects that only live for a week.
I'm glad rock-collecting isn't like this. There's obviously the people who travel to localities to hand-collect their own samples and the people who just think rocks are pretty. But everyone has been very welcoming since I got back into it and even the most knowledgeable and serious dealer will talk to you at your level. You want a sample of malachite because it's really neat-looking? Great. You want to sit and talk about the composition, formation conditions, and what other minerals form alongside it? That's great too! Also, I have these samples I haven't put out for sale yet, but you seem interested and I really want to show them to you.
Having spent so much time in the horse world, the "You like rocks? Me too! Look at this one!" Attitude is so refreshing.
I wonder if it's about the expenditure. If you spend a bunch of money on something, it's probably natural to get more serious/nervous about it. (Though, for all I know, maybe rock collecting is expensive too.)
Or maybe it's about how serious it is to a layman. Rocks are serious! Geologists write papers and hold conferences! Horses, stamps, model trains, people are passionate about them, but it's maybe a little funnier to the layman.
I've got a lot more money tied up in rocks than I'd like to admit. And I don't have any particularly nice specimens. I just buy what makes me happy. I pay $5-$30 per specimen. There's a lot of things I would like to buy in the $100-$1000 range, but they just don't make me that much happier than my little cheap rocks.
Even just getting riding lessons is $30/hour in a cheap area in a low-cost facility. You can get a good horse for free, but board is $250/month, $500 for everything you need if you buy it used, plus vet and farrier bills. Definitely a higher initial cost and I sure don't buy $250 of rocks a month.
But I don't think rocks are somehow more serious than horses. There's a lot to know about each and there's a ton of money to be spent on either. I honestly think it's just a culture thing. Horses come with status traditionally and rock collectors tend to just like rocks and then drinking a beer and talking about rocks. There's lots of down-to-earth horse owners and I'm sure there's some pompous asses in the rock collecting world. They just don't seem to be the majority.
Seriously, though, you just described my experience of the coin collecting community pretty well, too. You've got the people who have full collections of mint state Buffalo nickels, and you've got the people who collect coins with animals on them. A full boat of high grade Buffalo nickels can run you well over $50k, while you might not even have to put $50 into your animal collection to have a hundred nice pieces.
About the only thing the coin community goes hard on generally speaking is cleaning or artificially toning coins (using chemicals to apply fake patinas or color). Those are no-nos, and you won't get any respect by doing them. The exception is ancient coins, which, since they're hundreds or thousands of years old, and frequently come out of the ground, usually need some cleaning to be presentable.
LEGO makes (made) trains that are roughly Lionel size and they're much more durable (and though some of the parts are older and expensive, they're available).
Yeah, I took my kids to a train show (having had them as a kid myself) and someone started telling my seven year olds that they have to pick an era and a location so they could make sure they got appropriate stuff.
My daughter just wanted the rainbow painted grain hopper. Steered them away before he could ruin the whole thing for them.
I really see the moral of the story here is to simply not care so much what other people think. You do you. There are always these kinds of people who think their way of doing the hobby/passion is the right way or even the only way. You see this in cycling where you have to have a carbon fiber road bike and fancy lycra to be a cyclist, you obviously can't be having fun on an old bike just leisurely riding around the neighborhood!
If you want to collect stuff and organize by country go for it! Don't let people take away the joy because they are narrow minded.
Honestly, this is a problem with everything. Snobs are sort of a double edged sword. They are great because they are very passionate and likely spend a lot of time on the topic at hand (could be anything. Maybe it's running, classical music, Buddhism, beer etc.). You can learn a lot from them. On the downside, since they are so opinionated they can be frequently insufferable. I think you have to learn to not take their opinions too seriously and continue to have fun.
> You see this in cycling where you have to have a carbon fiber road bike and fancy lycra to be a cyclist, you obviously can't be having fun on an old bike just leisurely riding around the neighborhood!
I’m
Confused. Who exactly cares what you ride?? Someone has actually said something to you??
You can hang out with bike riders in a club or riding group, and you'll see this the very first day!
There's ALWAYS one guy talking about his new top-end Cannondale or about how he's using a carbon fiber frame because the titanium frame was so obviously too heavy. They often spend more time on this than actually riding.
These guys (it's usually guys) will also be the first to snear at your econo-bike that you bought just to try out the hobby.
Strictly speaking for stuff like amateur radio, I get it - I'm more interested in the building of equipment than the using. But it's not the mean of the hobby; more of an outlier and it's best to realize that and check your ego/expectations of others who may enjoy other parts of it.
When I was a kid in the 70s I had a small stamp collection. We'd trade them with my friends. Bought a few. A friends Mom worked at a university and would get a lot from overseas stamps to bring to us.
They're like little pieces of art and are pretty cheap. They're a window into history.
They have a brief overview of the museum. Its a targeted a little at the younger set, but a decent overveiw. (They have boxes of stamps they sell to kids for a couple cents each according to the video). They show the first stamp, an owl stamp collection (hedwig included) a box for mailing eggs, and a dress made of stamps.
What? You're just coding for fun? Where's your helm charts? If you're going to be serious about this, you'll need to learn three languages. HTML isn't a language. Make sure it works across platforms, too. Also, you have make it multicloud.
> It takes me several years to actually accept that the stamp album is gone, not hiding in a box somewhere or shelved away in some dusty corner of my mum’s garage.
I lost my comic book collection. I was sure it was stolen. I looked everywhere for it.
About 20 years later it reappeared in the back of the closet. I have no explanation.
hmm, possibly, seems more likely that an unnamed superhero has been working behind the scenes in a decades long battle against his arch nemesis, the Comic Thief, and has finally tuned the tide discovering a trove of comic collections and worked around the clock under extreme circumstances to reunite the collections with their rightful owner, no?
Nah, who does that, that's too easy. It's more likely that the GP's comic book collection was the key to unlocking a portal to an alternate universe where the heroes had not been defeated, so the remaining heroes could go there, learn the secret of their victory and come back to rewind time and never have lost to their nemesis in the first place, which explains how the GP's comics were in the closet this whole time after having been stolen.
I think OP failed to realize there are 0011 kinds of people in the world.
0001) your average joe. He just wants a stamp.
0010) You. You want some stamps, but you are not "into it".
0011) Those guys at the store. 0001 and 0010 are rubbish and should not be speaking to them, for they are elite stamp collectors, just like everyone else should be.
It is getting harder to just find people "into it". I am a hi-fi enthusiast. I also have advanced degrees in EE and Physics, but I try to not let that get in the way. Talking to people on hi-fi forums seems MUCH harder than say, 10 years ago (and I never left the forum). Now I am one of the silent lurkers.
My point is not to go "forums now suck", but I think that "real collectors" are too extreme now... hrm, perhaps just like everything else? Polarized?
A friend recently pointed out that fandoms are like a fractal, and as you zoom in it becomes increasingly hardcore and dedicated.
The next layer on your list is probably the stamp collector that only loves a certain kind of stamp with some obscure feature and will talk your ear off about it. Probably something like how only the stamps made in a specific year by one company are any good because they use a highly specialized glue which really makes it the pinnacle of stamp technology. A real "they just don't make em like they used to".
People become obsessed with things to such an extreme degree that they end up drowning out anyone without an equivalent level of dedication. It becomes a problem when people chose to play status games instead of just enjoying their hobby.
>People become obsessed with things to such an extreme degree that they end up drowning out anyone without an equivalent level of dedication. It becomes a problem when people chose to play status games instead of just enjoying their hobby.
It's true in academia and in technical fields as well. As you become an expert, details most people skip over become very important parts of your day.
The real difference is between people who disdain you for not knowing as much as they do about some issue, those who enthusiastically try to educate you, and those who recognize not everyone cares about it as much as they do and tries to speak to whatever level you are at (or slightly above it if you've expressed a desire to go deeper.)
I noticed this with history. You can go from general history to people who can tell you where a WW2 jeep engine was built based on its serial number.
I also found that unlike with most hobbies, I find history talk much more civilised all around. People are eager to share, and generally willing to accept well-sourced disagreement.
Some forums exemplify the long tail of hobby fanaticism. What used to be a couple people in the back of the convention that were hardcore is now a large group of those disparate people in a forum.
Sometimes you have to find a different forum. That's also why you'll see multiple subreddits for the same thing. They embody different aspects of the topic and draw people that associate with that aspect. Sometimes some of the same people in both, but the purport themselves differently depending on where they are.
I remember how forums used to always have a few extremely knowledgeable individuals that would post and give insights but for the most part would be pretty nice and humble. Sometimes they even worked in the industy. And a lot of times they wouldn't even comment until another user called them out.
Then the psuedo experts started showing up. They either overestimate their experience or just spent some time on wikipedia and think that they're an expert, and they make a point to pick apart every post they can. And even less knowledgeable posters will back the pseudo expert because they are relentless and are able to sound smart.
It is the same thing in synth and guitar circles. Maybe now we have just discussed all of these things as nauseum for so long the only way to move the discussion forward is this extremeness.
I just found this out the hard way. After playing acoustic for ~15 years, I decided my birthday this year was the time to join the world of electric guitars. I joined several guitar related FB groups, expecting them to be as civil as the tabletop gaming groups I belong to (my other hobby). I quickly found out how wrong I was, it seemed there was no topic too mundane to turn into a mud slinging gate keeper competition. Not sure what it is about musical instruments that makes it that way.
I own an electric cello that I occasionally play and used to take lessons with. Back when I was looking for a teacher, I had a hard time finding anyone who'd let me use it during lessons. Most of them wanted me to rent a wooden cello.
I get that there are a lot of bad electric cellos out there, and there are some good electrics that are bad for beginners. But, mine is a Yamaha SVC-100 [0]. It's a professional-worthy instrument, even if most professionals don't use it. It has all the correct touch points as a regular cello, and it responds like a normal cello, so, as far as learning goes, it's just fine.
With cello people, I think it's a sense of conservatism or something. I didn't really want to rent an instrument, so, I kept looking until I found someone who would just let me play my own. The guy I found was amazing, and owned his own electric. He also played cello in a rock band. I'm sure all those other cello teachers were fine, but I had a blast with this guy, and I'm glad I found him.
there are people who are super into things and will discuss fine grades of distinctions and super snobby sounding criteria with fellow enthusiasts, but will also appreciate and encourage someone who just wants to dabble.
If anyone is interested in stamps as more of a casual hobby where you get more joy in seeing a wide variety than a pristine, ordered collection, I highly recommend https://www.postcrossing.com/. It's an international postcard exchange program, most certainly low-tech in this day and age, but I find it immensely satisfying. I buy as many combinations of stamps as I can (the US's international stamp is boring) and love choosing the perfect ones for my postcard's recipient.
List in your profile that you like stamps or even say the type you're interested in. You'll be amazed at some of the ones you'll get from all over the world.
It took me decades to chat in bars about things I have a lot of detailed knowledge about. Learning to listen to stories and not automatically correct took some time.
Maybe because generally men have a lot of trouble identifying their self worth in society, maybe because few people are actually that sympathetic to men and their struggle to find meaningful fulfillment within their lives.
Every struggle is seen as a negative, some "toxic" side of masculinity that needs to be eradicated rather than embraced and understood. We are positively hostile to it.
And somewhat strangely we also attack femininity, though in a less openly hostile manner, more killed with compassion. We seem to feel sorry for outward femininity which appears to be having the effect of pushing women towards a more masculine outlook. I feel we no longer adore femininity like we once did.
Some may argue that this is all for the best, and that we need to push us all to some more less defined state, but I'm not so sure that the cost in diversity is worth it.
I've definitely had my femininity attacked in an openly hostile manner. Often. When I was in junior high and high school, I thought women were the lesser sex and eschewed girly hobbies and clothing in favor of more masculine things. No dresses, no makeup, I cooked in order to eat, nothing fancy. I hung out with the guys and played video games. It wasn't until the last 5 years or so that I realized I could wear skirts out shopping and work a blue collar job during the week. I know masculinity is under attack in many circles, but it's quite the claim to say that femininity is less so.
I of course could have a selection bias being male myself, and I mean not to diminish the attack on femininity. It's unfortunate that this all becomes a little adversarial across gender divides, especially considering how beneficial I think cross gender relationships generally are.
Indeed, I do loathe the lose of more femininity in life and media. I feel quite often now in media a "strong female lead" is essentially changing the pronoun of what once would have been a male character, in my opinion this is lazy and disingenuous to strong femininity.
Sorry if I came at you a little aggressively there. I'm still getting used to the fact that this isn't reddit and just assumed you were one of those guys who thinks that women are handed everything in life and men are the real victims here.
What I'd like to see is both men and women being encouraged to show "feminine" traits. What's wrong with demonstrating emotion? Why does it seem like the only emotion men are allowed to have is anger? Why does a man have to be stoic and avoid asking for help when he's in pain? It's not advantageous for anyone.
On the flip side, why are women not allowed to stand their ground without being called bitchy? I've had problems a number of times in previous jobs where I'm right about the way something should be done, know I'm right, but no matter how carefully I tried to word my disagreement with what was going on, the men I worked with would shut down and become cold to me. A man making the same suggestion, however, was a leader with good ideas. Thankfully I've found a job where I'm expected to be a little pushy and opinionated and life has been so much easier since.
I see where you're coming from and agree that we should be encouraging both masculinity and femininity because both have their value. Being a bit of a "masculine" chick myself though, I don't feel that these traits should be strictly assigned to their traditional genders. There's a lot of value in women who have good ideas defending them rather than trying to keep the peace and there's a lot of value in a man who has high emotional intelligence entering a caretaker role or even just using that sensitivity to keep a team cohesive. I think society has definitely done itself a disservice by expecting women to be more like men and expecting men to be almost a caricature of masculinity.
This brings to mind Ted Kaczynski's manifesto in terms of the need for achievable, non-trivial goals and the inability of so-called 'surrogate' goals to really satisfy that need.
I love when people reference Kaczynski's work in serious discussions like this. Ted Kaczynski the domestic terrorist and murderer was not a person to be admired, but Ted Kaczynski the anarcho-primitivist philosopher is one of the most underrated and important intellectuals of the late 20th century. There's an awful lot packed into his manifesto, and I wish more people could see past his crimes in order to take that in.
Men engaging in dick-waving contests isn't new. It pre-dates not just the current era of men feeling obsolete, but the entire history of humans as a species. Every mammal engages in it and we are no different in this regard.
Is it really just a "fight for status among males"?
If you don't correct someone, I only see two possibilities:
1. The topic is so worthless (to you) it doesn't matter if they're wrong.
2. They are so worthless (to you) it's not worth correcting them on an important topic.
2b. They lack the intelligence (IQ or EQ) to grow from being corrected.
Of course, a some of the time this is right.
Yes there's also a chance that you're wrong (in which case correcting them may result in you being corrected, or at least a potentially fruitful discussion), but the same would apply - is the topic and person worthwhile the chance of upsetting a thin-skinned idiot?
I’ve taken it a step further and play along with spiritual and astrology talk from women.
About 2/3rds of guys and 1/3rd of other women act very confused that I’m not immediately denigrating the person talking about signs and dietary restrictions. Turns out all you have to do is not do that, and a lot of things open up with very visually attractive people. Yeah, I’ll talk about higher vibrations with the fun lean vegan woman.
They're used to people pedantically challenging their belief system, but many can amplify their interest in you if you simply don't do that.
I don't mind that belief system, and I'm actually advocating for people to not denigrate or lecture people that talk about astrology. The bar shouldn't be so low. I'm pretty sure this is being a decent human being, you're assuming a lot for a reason beyond me. I would still use the term play along because it is accurate.
I think a lot of collectors collect specifically for the same reason people grind in RPGs: to get the mental and emotional satisfaction from the "complete set" (of stamps, or rare armor, or whatever).
Collecting without such a goal would, to people like that (who I assume comprise the large majority of collectors) would seem like a colossal waste of time. Why grind out the dungeon to get the greaves and the chest plate and then not spend a few more hours to get the helm?!!
Most human behavior is not very rational, and I say that referring to both parties in this story.
-The problem, of course, being: What do you do when the collection is complete? (I ran into that problem once - I collected stamps fairly seriously during my childhood and youth, spurred on by my father who was and is really into it.
However, I narrowed my collection to two themes - Norway and scout-themed stamps and letters from all over the world.
Once the Norway collection was complete to the current date, it was a massive 'meh' moment - just obtaining new stamps as they were issued wasn't much of a challenge, so the Norway albums were put on the shelf, and interest in stamp collecting withered quickly.
The process of collecting was probably most of the fun, anyway. That said, I could see how the internet ruined it because 99% of what you're looking for can be in your hands in a week for the right price.
-I've met collectors (of records, in that case) who had what I consider an admirable attitude towards the perils of instant eBay gratification - seeing as the chase in most cases was better than the catch, they'd imposed a 'no Internet' rule - albums were only bought in physical record stores, at record fairs, garage sales &c - but, as it was put - 'Unless I can chat a bit with the seller, then put the money in his hand, there's no deal.'
I'd imagine it makes the hobby equal measures more rewarding and frustrating.
(I've since tried to adopt this approach myself as far as practically possible - seeing as for me (YMMV), the social aspect of discussing music and artists with other enthusiasts is a major part of the appeal, helping me discover new music on ways no auction site can.
The HN analog to the Australian album experience is a new acquaintance telling a software engineer about their idea for an app.
The stamp shop people were professionals, that's why it looked like an office. They showed the author how their business worked. Showed what it would be like to do business with them.
That's not what the author wanted. There wasn't anything personal about it. They didn't string the author along. They didn't provide ambiguous social signals. The author was just a little slow on the uptake. A little slow to say thanks for your time.
Educating potential customers is part of a professional's life. The author learned something about stamp collecting. It's no more exclusively what he does than it is exclusively selling Australian collections.
Just to add some context for why the dealer probably acted that way.
Stamp collectors for exploration are quite a bit different from the kinds of collectors that tend to go to stamp dealers (I am one of those collectors).
You end up focussing on extremely narrow areas of the hobby to the point where you are hunting down which library has a painting a stamp is copied from or trying to track down an envelope sent by a particular person from a particular city.
You can have 10 different variations of a stamp that look all the same except under a magnifying glass.
There are collectors who have hundreds of thousands of dollars in their collections and all of the same single stamp. Just 1000 different copies of it.
The premier component of my collection is an exhibit on the 1982 Canadian Philatelic Youth Issue, a single stamp series (about stamps).
So for a lot of collectors (including the ones willing to spend thousands a year) it’s less an accumulation hobby and more a specific research project.
Not excusing the behaviour of the dealers, but meeting someone who collected so widely could be unusual for them.
The problem is that some of those collectors don't realize that there are any other ways of approaching a hobby.
A while back on BGG, someone new dropped a question in a forum about designing a game based on a web comic. He was told immediately that he'd never make money, that he'd never be successful without more experience than he'd be willing to get, and to top it off, got a long lecture from one grognard about how the game---based on a comic---would be a total failure unless he dropped the concept and rebased it on said grognard's own ideas.
The newbie concluded, rightly, that it wasn't a welcoming community.
I have collected stamps as a kid and I have been collecting Postal History for decades on and off, focusing mainly on research and writing up the covers that I have managed to collect. Kept me sane during the COVID-19 lockdowns.
Philately is not about 'chasing madly a missing stamp', but a journey for those interested in history, especially local history. It is still a great hobby and to anyone interested to start, start from buying a small collection. Most collectors will either buy from a dealer, but most often from an auction. See https://stampauctionnetwork.com/ as an example. You can build a collection with very little money or spent hundreds of thousands.
It inspires me to hold an old letter (cover or wrapper in philatelic jargon), that has travelled through a ship across continents and has survived for 200 years and now is in my collection. Pre-stamp letters go for very little, especially North American, British and really for a song for most European countries.
The bitcoin of the early eighties was 'getting into hard assets'. Lots of funds invested into stamps and drove prices to levels that collectors couldn't buy. They burnt their fingers, while collectors waited. It is still a huge market possibly 3-5 billion USD a year. As an investment I would not recommend them, but as a nice indoor hobby and to socialize outside your own circle is worth it.
Lots of discussion about collecting (and in seeking to own a complete set of stamps, coins etc) vs exploring. I wonder though if for most if the pleasure is in a combination of the two.
When I was very young I collected the stamps of my country - which I guess will be fairly common. Seeking out issues that I was missing was appealing and there was definitely a thrill in tracking down missing items.
At the same time I learned about history (albeit in a superficial way) both from knowing about the era in which the stamps were issued and, for more recent issues, from the topics depicted on the stamps. That knowledge seemed to stick too and more so than just from reading books. I guess I also learned a little about markets and scarcity.
I wonder if that knowledge would have stuck without the effort of seeking and the reward of finding and whether we have lost something in the ease of access to information today.
This resonates with something I've thought about as a surfer, which is that humans have a really perverse tendency to overvalue scarcity and undervalue what is good but common and easily accessible. In the surfing context, humans cluster very densely on waves that are deemed "good," and then complain about crowds, while endless miles of coastline with different waves go totally unridden. We all want that "rare" wave, and have trouble being happy with the sort of waves that are commonplace.
I know what I am meant to think and feel in response to this article, but I don't. Keeping in mind that this was written by the one of the three people in the story, who took it upon themselves to post about the experience online later, I can only assume there is some level of bias and quite possibly exaggeration. Put simply, these are the facts of the interaction: 1. An inexperienced individual enters a highly specialized area. 2. Someone who we can assume is highly experienced takes time out of their day to explain to them their (probably popular) conception of how the specialized area functions. 3. This experienced individual gives them something of value relating to the highly specialized area (I do not know what the cash value of this thing is, but it is nonzero), likely in hopes of future business. 4. The inexperienced individual is upset and posts about the interaction online, tagging it with "jerk".
I understand the point of the article, but the characterization of the shopkeeper seems unfair. If you're unwilling to learn from someone because they don't understand what exactly you're trying to do, or because they speak condescendingly, or because they smell bad, or because you disagree with their opinion on X, Y, or Z, you will not learn very much.
Perhaps it is honest rather than embellished. I have had similar experiences with bike shops. Some seem to be more interested in converting or repulsing customers who don't fit their definition of serious.
That being said, the author did walk into the shop with a rather difficult request. How do you recreate something personal?
Many of these shops aren’t business so much as a labor of love/personal church. So you go in and obviously they try to convert you to their way of thinking
On the contrary I feel like the author came in with an easy request. He wasn't looking for anything rare or expensive or special. He was looking for world stamps. Show him world stamps you're willing to sell him.
I thought this was written in an open enough way to leave room for a wide range of takeaways, and it also seems fair to say the shop keeper was acting like a jerk. Not that he's obliged to serve a client who's looking for something so different from what the shop provides, but he could have been more pleasant, and just let the customer know he doesn't have what he's looking for.
I think there is a place in the world for people with specialized interests to have a shop that caters exclusively to other people who are deep into the hobby, and to be a little brusk to normies who wander in looking for something else. It sure would have been a lot nicer if the shop keeper just understood the situation and kindly explained "That's not what we do here", but, hey, not everybody's gonna be super nice. It's part of life.
It's definitely bizarre to focus ONLY on "complete collections". WTF! It kind of speaks to making EVERYTHING about money and some bizarre and screwed up ideals as well.
I have a pretty decent stamp collection that I inherited from my father who collected stamps since 1940 up to shortly before he died. He picked up stamps partially based on historical relevance (so NOT 100% from any one country - but for example he liked the inter-war stamps of countries involved in WW2) and then because he thought some were simply pretty. He easily spent $200K on stamps over his lifetime.
The obsession with 100% of everything seems OCD to me - not healthy.
I also collect rocks and minerals - I don't try to collect "one of everything" but rather simply what either looks cool or that is chemically/geologically fascinating to me.
As a seven year old I was a member of my schools philately club. I could buy mixed bags for 20p each, the local police superintendent was a very knowledgeable member as well. I would talk about stamps and countries with my fellow members, it was wonderful.
After leaving primary school I kept collecting, but slowed down as a teenager.
Then as an adult I got serious again. I visited a few philately shops to buy the missing pieces in my UK and Ireland stamp collections. The owners were totally disinterested. They were more interested in knowing about what I had. I did have some very rare stamps, worth about 4-figures. I didn't want to part with them because family members gave them to me. But the way those dealers were obsessed with money over simple enjoyment bothered me.
Some people care about the enjoyment more than the money.
Reminded of the scene in the movie Unbreakable when Samuel L Jackson's character refuses to sell the rare drawing to the man after he reveals it was going to be a gift for a young child, who would be unable to fully appreciate it.
Stamps are one of the most portable collectibles. (Along with bugs.) Moves forced the loss of other collections ... but I've kept the collection of "only about 6000 or 7000 stamps" I made as a kid (I counted once).
It went with me to stay at grandma's, on babysitting jobs, on summer trips that went to nowhere to do nothing. Open the book, get out the hinges, dive in.
I learned a lot about world geography, culture, arts and crafts, and political BS from those revealing little bits of 'official' history. The 'most valuable' stamp I found (nothing printed on it) taught me -nothing-.
You missed an opportunity to learn from that blank stamp, I think. It probably could have taught you something about the manufacturing process of stamps.
Yeah, you should collect what interests you. My Dad, who was an RAF V-bomber captain, had a great (and quite valuable) collection based on early airmail, with pictures of airships and biplanes on the stamps.
I've had a similar realization rather recently when cleaning out my parent's house after both their deaths. My father got me into stamp and coin collecting as a young child and it was an opportunity to bond and have something in common. For many years now, I haven't given the hobby much thought. Seeing the remnants on the old stamp collection brought back some memories. As I looked up values and got a better idea of what the collection might be worth, I could see clearly that even sheets of uncanceled stamps, which I used to prize, were near worthless. Some of that difference in perceived value is explained by the perceptions of a child versus that of an adult. But these stamps just hadn't appreciated much in value over many years, certainly not the degree anyone could call them a good investment.
But what was most striking to me, which I hadn't really thought about when I was young collecting these for entertainment, was just how particular and stultifying the grading systems for any collectible can be. I think the system, and how it interacts with money, is the culprit. There is this undercurrent of curation and preservation that goes along with collecting which leads to perfectly preserved toys in boxes. I appreciate things in themselves, and not just for their use. But I dislike the idea that a blemish, like a torn perforation on a sheet of stamps, can devastate the value of an object. For the objects I have several of, their use contributes to my enjoyment. If other people want to maintain museums, that's up to them.
I'd argue that since they brought you and your father closer together, and was something you spent time with him doing, they're priceless - what does it matter if they weren't a good investment monetarily, time, and especially time with people who you won't have in your life for the entire duration, is worth more, because no amount of money can buy more of it.
I agree, there's no question that was the real value. I should point out that whatever made it fun is gone. Whatever I found compelling about design or history as exemplified in stamps, is available through the Internet and books. If I were to collect stamps again, it would be images of stamps, not the fragile artifacts themselves.
10 years ago I pre-inherited a nice quality wooden ship model kit (assembled) from my father. He'd meant to assemble it in his retirement, but realized in his 80's he'd never do it.
In the last few months, I put a huge push into cleaning up my home office/workspace and now am working on one of the models. It feels good to go back to that thing to try and finish it. It's not as much the completion that drives me as the revisiting of the excitement of the old dream and love of old ships and wooden ship models.
This story reminded me of something I lost about the same age. My grandfather was a surveyor and he gave me his compass. It was not an expensive one, though it was made of bronze. I took it with me to Los Angeles. I don't think it ever came back. But I don't know where I lost track of it. I wish I still had it to remember him by.
We have a relatively big stamp collection that used to belong to my great-grandfather, but we're not quite sure what to do with it. Should we give them away? Sell them online? Keep them around in case a family member becomes interested?
I find it interesting how many collections come from a continuation of childhood. Maybe it's survivorship bias.
I've been collecting Japanese robot figures since I was a kid. I always dreamed of walking into a normal retail store and seeing the figures in person rather than browser-shopping. Most of my "modern" collection is comprised of figures I found in person when I was living in Japan. Not only were they usually much cheaper than online offerings (often by factors of 1/2 to 1/4), but the thrill of hunting through secondhand stores imbues is more romantic than waiting for UPS to drop off a brown box.
I used to collect stamps till I was about 14, then had to leave the country and leave the collection behind. 30 years or so later, my mom managed to find and send me my old collection (well, some of it, and with none of the valuable stamps that probably were lost). Of course in the meantime I lost interest in collecting stamps (or anything else for that matter; leaving a big collection behind was a bit of a heartbreak I never truly recovered from, I guess).
So now my question is: what to do with these stamps? I want to give them to someone I'd care about and who would value them, but that is easier said than done. Any ideas?
> I want to give them to someone I'd care about and who would value them, but that is easier said than done. Any ideas?
You could always sell them to a bricks and mortar stamp collecting shop. You won't get full market value (the guys have to pay their overheads), but you know they will end up with people who appreciate them.
Alternatively, donate them to a local stamp collecting club for distribution to the young members.
But speculation has run rampant and comic prices have quadrupled or more for most "key" comics since Jan 2020. It has made the hobby absolutely unaffordable for most, like me. I don't chase the same comics as most people do, like Spider-man 300 (first Venom), New Mutants 98 (first Deadpool), Hulk 181 (first Wolverine), etc.
But even comics with large print runs have gone through the roof, which is frustrating as heck. It has completely taken the joy out of the hobby for me, and I'm patiently waiting for prices to crash, but I'm worried they never will.
I wonder what those 2 guys in the store were doing all day? Just buying and selling rare stamps? Maybe hoping to find that one stamp to complete some collection?
Seems like every fandom has its gatekeepers. I’m sure the person in the first shop actually thought they were being helpful - in their narrative they were the wise sage just trying to impart their wisdom about “the right way” not realizing the damage they were doing in the process.
I am sure I’ve been as guilty of this as anybody when it comes to something I’m really knowledgeable and passionate about.
Maybe because stamp collecting was the first shopclerks "business" he did not really see the joy in it any longer? Logical arrangements are nice but aesthetic arrangements are also nice!
> So, for you, it was just a form of mindless entertainment? A hobby?
Wow, such condescension. Reminds me of the saying "Everyone thinks other people's hobbies are a waste of time". For some it's stamp collecting, others it's watching musicals, and others do programming. Everyone should be allowed to do what they love in their spare time without others looking down on them.
I almost appreciated how condescending he was. As someone who tries to avoid collecting, it just reinforced that decision.
I used to collect Star Trek Christmas tree ornaments. At some point, I realized I'd just get a new one, put it in the box with the others, and not touch it until I open the box in a year. The end game of collecting seemed very futile.
This gave me a better appreciation for things that are performed (like playing an instrument) because they're never perfect, never finished, and there might not even be an artifact of it.
My parents were huge collectors of ...stuff. Not quite hoarding, but in the same neighborhood.
I was for a while, too, simply because of how I was raised. But as my own home filled, I clearly noticed how less happy I was becoming. And when my parents passed, the work of dealing with a full home was, frankly put, awful.
I purposefully have changed my hobbies to things like music, cooking, gardening. Gaming, too. You can practice a musical piece a thousand times- it doesn't add to your mess. Cooking fulfills an immediate need, and it's been my experience that quality food as a gift is more appreciated than almost any physical artifact. And plants bring their own joy, without continuously taking more space.
My mother once told me late in her life to spend my money on experiences, not things, and I think about it often. She was right.
That attitude reminded me of a guy who owned a used book store in a town where I used to live.
He had all the "literary" stuff on prominent display, and all the genre fiction crammed into the back.
Oh, he'd sell you science fiction, or mysteries, or romance, or whatever, but he'd always make sure to give you a little sneer when ringing you up. "Enjoy your trash, lowbrow!"
His store went out of business and he had to liquidate his entire stock at 90% off.
We have an awesome local used bookstore that has managed to survive the covid shutdowns.
Their secret? They have their 'trashy lowbrow' proudly front and center. They, of course, carry everything, but they also know what sells, and want people happily reading, no other requirements.
Turns out that sort of approach leads to lifelong, regular customers!
Many people who go to stamp dealers are collecting because of a personal interest in history. It's a hobby, but it's a serious hobby for them with non-entertainment goals. It's those people who start stamp stores, visit them, and generally keep the entire industry alive.
Finding someone who simply does it for 'joy' is against the grain.
It's like having a Porsche and not knowing anything about its internals or engineering history and simply driving it for fun on the track. If you join a car club, they'll think you are weird for not caring or knowing the displacement of your engine or your tire size.
I've been involved in many car clubs and have never seen anyone think someone is "weird" for not knowing those things, they just assume the person isn't that interested in caring about those technical details (akin to being at a tech conference and there being programmers vs. users of a platform). As long as you have an interest in the cars and are sociable, other people are generally happy that you're there.
> It's like having a Porsche and not knowing anything about its internals or engineering history and simply driving it for fun on the track. If you join a car club, they'll think you are weird for not caring or knowing the displacement of your engine or your tire size.
Who cares if they do? If you want to buy a Porsche to enjoy hooning it around the track without knowing about any of that stuff, and if you can afford it? Why not do it? Who cares what those people think?
I absolutely don't mind if people want to geek out on the details or really take their hobbies seriously: that's totally cool. I do start to mind a bit when they expect me to do the same when that might not be what I want to do.
-Myself, I don't listen to country&western music, but I don't want to denigrate people who do.
Oh, if you listen to C&W and read this - 'denigrate' means 'put down'.
:)
(I agree wholeheartedly, though - to each his own, and if I find joy in collecting whatever stamps come my way, then so be it - chances are I have as much fun collecting as someone who, say, only collects NK100 (Norwegian 10 øre posthorn stamp) - it was printed over several decades, more than half a billion of them in a country of (then) a couple of million inhabitants - lots of minor variations in paper, ink, engravings...)
I went to a coin show today on a whim and what I discovered was that there are ALL types of collectors, and everyone should really understand that:
* There's 10 year old me that was obsessed with finding the rare die varieties hidden in the $1 bins,
* There's 42 year old me that is now getting deep joy buying the rare gems (1790s silver dollars, $20 gold pieces, etc.) that were beyond out-of-reach of 10-year-old me
* There's folks who obsess over filling every date of a specific series
Etc. etc. etc.
Find your joy and run with it, and definitely don't try to tell someone that their joy is the wrong one.